Conventional color photography depends on the formation of dyes and uses subtractive primaries to form the desired colors. One of the problems encountered with the dyes that form the images is their tendency to degrade when exposed to light. This is of particular importance with respect to photographic elements intended for direct viewing. Since the advent of color photography there have been ongoing efforts to improve the dye stability. Efforts have been ongoing to provide stabilized dyes which exhibit improved light stability. In particular, proposals have been made for new couplers that provide desirable dye properties but the resulting dyes often do not exhibit the satisfactory dye stability.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,925,503; 5,972,574; and 5,972,587 disclose 1H-pyrazolo[5,1-c]-1,2,4-triazole magenta dye-forming couplers that provide a desirable hue for silver halide photographic elements. Generic formulas for these prior art couplers are as follows: ##STR2##
The first and third formulae may comprise a carbonamidoethyl link to the pyrazolotriazole coupler. It has been found that the stability of the resulting dye to light exposure using these generic types of couplers is unsatisfactory.
It is a problem to be solved to provide a silver halide photographic element containing a bicyclic azole dye-forming coupler that forms an image dye that exhibits improved image dye stability.